59 Responses

Charters are able to succeed for many reasons but one of the major reasons is because they exist outside of the monopolistic grip that NYSUT has on the taxpayers and the public education system. One need only ask a public sector teacher about charter school teaching jobs to see the laziness, sense of entitlement and unwillingness to work a normal work week and work year plaid out in front of your very eyes.

The govt should be involved in as little as possible. To truly fix education in this country we have to remove all that we have been accustomed to. The institutions that operate the most effectively and efficiently in the world are in the private sector. If the Albany public school system were run by a private organization on tax dollars tan there is no doubt in my mind that the check I wrote for $7,420 this past september for my home would have been more like $4,000.

I ask here, does anybody know the cost per year to educate a student in the Albany public system? Isnt it about $22,000????????? That is just crazy!!!!! How much is the private schools with, I add, after school programs. When my son was in Albany, they didnt even have hot lunches!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If it was for academic performance then they should close all the Albany public schools because thats what they have. This is very sad. It is a great school with great teachers and staff now they want our children to go to the Albany public schools, so they can get more money and forget all about them they become just another number, for their finances.

It’s unfortunate that this school has to close, but my heart hurts to read some of the comments about charter schools. I’ve been a teacher at two charter schools- one in the Capital District and one in Delaware and I see true value in them. Instead of making generic comments that are hurtful without doing your research, you should see the exemplary cases of good teaching that goes on in both public and charter schools. The schools are not the enemy- it is the politics involved in the whole educational system. It is a mess but it’s too hard to overturn the whole thing so the charter school was a nice solution. I used to be a skeptic, but then I really learned about them and I feel differently now. I also think that a little bit of information can be deadly for a cause- many people make blanket statements about things without getting the full picture (as evidenced by some comments above). I also think that we need to stop looking down political lines and think about what is best for our kids. If this school isn’t working then it’s not in the best interest of the kids to have the option to go there- but there’s no reason to say all charter schools are bad. Not all are run by corporations and even not all run by corporations are bad. Please do your research before you make blanket statements about this subject.

When will the teachers unions, educators, taxpayers, parents and beaurocrats realize it’s all about the children. They should come first. There would be $$ and support for Charter schools and good public schools if education and community were a priority. These children will be tomorrows leaders; let’s give them the opportunity to “stand on the shoulders of giants” by giving them a rigorous and thorough education.

New Covenant’s expected closure is the legacy of a poorly conceived charter school approval process in NY–one without any local control. Albany residents should have a right to determine how many and what type of public schools they should have. Taxpayers have been forced to pay for nine additional schools preventing the use of tax dollars to improve the existing public schools. Some positive aspects of the charters such as the longer school day could have been incorporated in the regular public schools without creating a second set of schools. The recently revealed problems at Albany Preparatory and Albany Achievement charter schools and the impending closing of New Covenant are proof that charter schools have no magic solution to the challenge of educating children from impoverished homes.

Charter Schools are a babysitting service…They start at 8 and get out at 5? Since when were kids forced to basically work FT Jobs and have little time to play? Whatever happened to having FUN as a kid!

***Great another abandoned building in Albany.*** I know they are building another chater school on Hackett Blvd. They want to build another one on Central Ave. They are doing construction at the N. Lake Charter Schhol. The Charter School Education and lesson are a least a year ahead then our public schools. If your child is in 2nd grade they are learning 2nd 3rd and some times 4th grade work. That’s why the Charter Schools Work.

It is about time that a charter was held accountable. As a service provider working with youth in the city of albany for over 20 years, my experience with the majority of the charters has not been positive. They routinely cherry pick the students that they will take (as finally documented this week when former employees blew the whistle on one such instance), they refuse to offer special education services to students, they have changed their recommendations for services on difficult special needs students and then advised parents that they need to return to public school since they don’t offer the necessary services, they expell underage students for inappropriate behavior without offering them any educational options and without notifiying the public school district that they are no longer enrolled, they fail to document students who consistently exhibit poor attendance or who dissappear from the rolls without documenting where they have gone and they rountinely send students back to public schools shortly before standardized testing exams. The reality is that if public schools were legally able to do all of those things than they would look better also. Charter school parents think that they are entitled to smaller class sizes and free supplies and free uniforms and all of the “perks” that go with charter schools. But the reality is that all of the “perks” come from tax payer money at the expense of the students in the public schools.
As a parent, my children went to public schools and when I was unhappy with that, I got a second job and put my children in a private school. I didn’t expect taxpayers (including me as I paid school taxes) to foot the bill for my “choice”. If charter schools are really better than public schools, they should be held to the same accountability standards, use the same amount of funds and be required to have the same services for all students that the laws dictate. Otherwise, they are just private schools being paid for by taxpayer dollars and if that is how NYS wants to work then struggling Catholic schools and private schools such as CBA, LaSalle and Holy Names should all be entitled to taxpayer dollars as well. Not just private schools in poor minority neighborhoods.

My children get a small class size, good involved teachers and an excellent education..HOW..I work overtime to send them to private school. Charter schools take tax dollars that should be going to improve Albany Public Schools. Close them all!

Charter Schools are taxation without representation. I’m not philosophically opposed to them, if they can prove they can educate children that are failed by the public schools (and not all of them are!). It is a ridiculous system, however, that allows charters in Albany to proliferate, spending millions in taxpayer dollars to construct buildings that come off the tax rolls – only to potentially be abandoned later.

One thing in the article that Mr. Waldman wrote needs to be corrected. Livingston did not close as a result of charter school competition; it closed because it’s been a failing and violent school for decades! It couldn’t be ignored it any longer. It’s shameful it took so long. Way to go Albany.
To the blogger who said charter schools are just a babysitting service because of the longer hours-if all schools were run this way, maybe there wouldn’t be as much gang activity and you wouldn’t have all these thugs running around with guns. I don’t feel bad for the kids that are in school until 5, at least they are learning and paving their way to college, not out hanging with their buddies getting into trouble. It’s not all work and no play either.

To the blogger who says that charter school are destroying the Albany Public School system, Albany has done a good job of that themselves. There wouldn’t be so many charter schools had Albany done a better job of educating our children. There is such a misconception about the charters “draining tax payer money”. The money allotted for kids that go to charter schools is only a portion of the money that the school would get if they attended a regular public school. Therefore, the City of Albany makes out on kids that go to charters. The problem is is that Albany still wants to operate as if they still have these kids in their schools which is ridiculous. It’s by their own hand that their budget is such a mess.
As for teacher unions, thanks a lot for protecting the jobs of the crappy Albany teachers I had growing up. I am grateful to charter schools for the having the sense to hold their teachers accountable. Our kids have a right to great teachers. I’m not saying all Albany Public School teachers are incompetent but there are an awful lot of failing schools in Albany. Whether it be the teaching, the administration, lack of professional development or whatever it is, nobody is being held accountable. I hope the new administration at Albany High can turn that place around. However, if it’s the teachers that are failing their students, what recourse does he have? Fight the Union? hahaha.
I am sad that New Covenant is in danger of closing. I was really routing for New Covenant. Hopefully these kids can be absorbed in one of the other charter schools and continue on their way to college!

I am disappointed that this discussion is just another opportunity for everyone to vent their side of the charter school argument. It’s time to move the conversation forward.

I sat through that last two Trustees’ meetings and saw the data. The Charter School Institute should be commended for preparing a meaningful analysis. Those numbers appeared to clearly indicate that there was a significant student turnover, a lack of progress on the ELAs, and severe financial concerns. The school was given a second chance and all committee members acknowledged that it missed the strict conditions for renewal this time around.

This particular school is not meeting its obligations, period.

It is my hope that that this type of analysis will be used during all renewals. Both New Covenant and the ACSD provided information above and beyond the normal, which was synthesized and well presented by the Institute. This is the openness and fairness that will let everyone see which schools are working and which are not.

Listen to some of your comments – that is political or that the Charter schools operate with less funds. The fact of the matter is that it is not political if it is based on test scores – the only politics being they were grated several reprieves. Also, charter schools receive the exact same amount per pupil that the public schools do, which takes into consideration the high cost of educating spec needs students, yet they do not provide programs or few programs for the special needs students. And other services such as transportation are still provided for them. I am an Albany tax payer who never complained about a district budget even though only 1 of my children went to public school (starting in HS). If there were not a profit to be made, these schools would not be run by for-profit businesses. And like it or not, many parents send their kids to charter schools because they save money on clothes and day care, not because they believe it is the best education around. I would be for good charter schools if they were funded by grants or outright by the state or other businesses. But as long as my money funds these schools I have the right to expect they to either perform above the public school and prove themselves or to be closed. I also should have the right to have a say in their budget and operations, which I cleary do not. When is the last time you have seen a public school anywhere open for just males or just females…never, because it is discrimination. And the charter schools have not proved themselves better at educating students – it is easy to point to results when you are in a school with only grades 1-2 which is before the standardized tests are taken, and recent events prove those that do operate in grades where standardized testing is required do everything in their power to make sure the low performers are taken out. Are the Albany Public schools great? No. I believe they have been run down by the previous administration and in the high school by a princial who may have been great in a elementary school that was basically minority but was way out of her league in a high school that needs to serve a very diverse population. And shame on you who think the criteria for a good school is a ‘hot lunch’ or a good place for the community to gather. Those things are nice, and a lunch, not necessary a hot one, is important to learning, but these things won’t get your child into any higer education courses to make his/her life better. He/she may have to actually to prove he/she can read, write and perform other assignments that were never taught in their school, and being dumped back into a REAL public school after they not been taught the basics is no good for anyone. New Covenant has had plenty of time to turn themselves around. If they are not making the grade, they should close. As for other charters, there should be a dialogue of communcation opened between the charter schools and the public schools so each can take away the best of both words. But do not continue to insult me by saying the charter schools are public schools because they are not. They do not have to follow the same rules nor have the same expectations of staff or performance as the public schools – whether it is Albany or any place else in the state. Let’s call the horse by the right name – they are private schools funded by public money.

Thank you mike and Frank above for having a point. People blame the teachers union and that’s very short sited. Perhaps some tenured teachers are protected and get an easy ride, but that’s not the majority or even a significant minority. Educating impoverished students of any race is a daunting task. How do you make up the huge deficits that these students have coming into kindergarten and first grade. Some of these students, by the time they reach middle or high school are 3-5 years below grade level in reading and other basic skills.

In order for a student to make gains, to even come close to catching up with their peers who are on grade level, they’d need to read 3-5 hours/day. That’s what the research supports. It’s also logical. If someone is that much better than you in a sport, you’d have to practice more than double in order to make significant strides towards evening the playing field. Well, NYS has things called Regents exams that all students are supposed to pass (Fair is not equal, and this is not reality. Do you know any 7th-12th grader who is willing to complete all their school work, do everything their teachers ask, and read on average 3-5 hrs/day? Well therein lies the route of some of our problems. I am not an elementary educator, but I believe that for the most part they are doing a good job. But it’s hard to serve the needs of all the students in a classroom, when many of them do not know their colors, the abc’s, how to write their name in k-1, at age 5-7. Well fast forward a couple more years, as students with caring parents, educated parents, work with their students at home and during the summer, those same impoverished students may have caught up with their deficits coming into to school, but are still a year or more behind their peers and growing. Perhaps the charters, with longer days and school year help to close that gap by mandatory involvement by the students, giving them more time to catch up. But should all schools then serve only those students that have no support at home? Are schools the cure-all for all of our society’s issues?

I teach remedial reading at an urban middle and high school. Many of my students are the students who enter school behind, fast fwd’d years ahead. They don’t know about the world nor do they have the basic skills to succeed. I work with them, giving them strategies and skills to read better, increase back ground knowledge, and give them a safe supported space to express themselves, but in the end, most of these students will not go to college, or have any chance of being on par with their non deficient peers. I am not an administrator or an experienced enough educator to have all the answers, I do what I can with the time I have. Perhaps, someone of you out there would like to see me let go, because my students don’t show significant gains on standardized tests, or that they haven’t made up years of deficiencies, well that’s why teachers have a union, for protection from the mob.

Good luck to the all teachers and students from New Covenant, although I am opposed to charters for many of the reasons listed above, particularly the lack of special Ed. services, I do not know if this was the best decision. It seems that acknowledgment that special needs students exist is lacking in charter schools, because not all students are equal or the same, and some need different settings, support staff, speech, reading, etc. Why do IEP’s exist? But that takes more staff and money, and would take away from the free supplies budget. Mainstreaming all students does not work and forcing teachers to differentiate their lessons so it meets the needs of all students thrown together with various levels and abilities, is why many teachers leave charters. Charters also do not always have the small class sizes as many claim, most are on par with other schools. The debate continues, but what will happen to the real people involved with this, the people actually affected, not the faceless name callers that post on many of these blogs. Oh, just a little nugget of wisdom, unless you are a parent or have taught, you really have no idea.

I’m glad to see another Charter school fail. Now if we can only get NYS to look at Troy charter schools. They operate on tax payer money with no one accountable for what they do with our money. They claim to educate local neighborhood children. Does anyone ever check where they kids actually live???. They have trouble meeting NYS education requirements each year, yet are given extensions like they are owed them, they are not. Put school back where it belongs…!!!!!!!

It is indeed sad that New Covenant is in such a difficult situation but they are not receiving outside financial help like the many of the other charters in Albany. They are simply in an impossible financial position which will more than likely get worse. By the way, you anti-union folks out there, the late Albert Shanker who was president of the the American Federation of Teachers, was the first proponent of publicly funded charter schools. He believed they should focus on core academic subjects with release from mandated federal and state curriculum. He also believed they should be held accountable and be completely open to public scrutiny. Wouldn’t it be great if the KIPP run charter schools allowed public scrutiny including the outside financing they receive? I also understand that the Arbor Hill Elementary School has been completely renovated and will reopen this September with a new focus and direction. No doubt thanks to the charter school competition but because it is needed!

It’s so sad to see people stating all of these “facts” that are completely untrue. Here are some actual facts, based on the law, data, etc.; not just someone’s opinion of how things are.

1. ALL Charter Schools in NY are not-for-profit organizations. Only one Charter School in Albany contracts with a for-profit company, but one of the reasons that they may close is that they’re not financially viable.

2. Charter Schools DO NOT get the same amount of money to per student as District schools. They get about 2/3rds of the money, and the District gets to keep the rest. They provide some services to the Charters, but there is absolutely no doubt that they make a profit when a student goes to a Charter. They just choose to keep spending as if they haven’t lost students.

4. Charter Schools do not tax people and do not set tax rates. The rates are set by the host Districts. If they are “taxation without representation”, then so is BOCES, and any other vendor that the school district pays.

5. For those who think Charters should run “without taxpayer dollars”, you are basically saying the Charter schools should educate public school students while the District schools get to keep all of the money that taxpayers pay to educate those students.

6. Charter Schools make exactly $0 if no parents decide to send the children to them. Presumably they are the ones who know what is best for their children and are deciding to send them there.

7. There is NO Charter School “Industry”. They operate independently, and if anything, they’ve done a bad job of talking together and attempting to advance their agendas.

8. Here’s why you have to take anti-charter information with a grain (or wheelbarrow) of salt: Public education is dysfunctional. I haven’t met a single person who works for a school district who doesn’t think so. Decisions in the schools are based on the interests of adults, not children. Charter Schools threaten the interests of these adults, whether they be unions, administrators, vendors, etc. Threatened people with lots of resources cause trouble.

9. Charter Schools have had and are having a positive effect on Albany. They provide quality education to their students, and their influence has resulted in numerous (though not enough) changes to District Schools because of the competition.

10. Charter Schools are not staffed or run by idealistic conservatives trying to stomp out unions. Charter School Boards and staff are, by and large, people who are dedicated to proving that disadvantaged kids *can* learn and achieve, and they believe that this is the way to improve our communities. Their service deserves praise and thanks, not baseless derision.

Last, but most important:
Why the heck are people always looking for gimmicks, rationalizations, etc., for why Charter Schools outperform District Schools??? Why can’t it be the hard work put it by students and teachers? Charter School students spend 2/3rds more instructional time than their counterparts in District Schools! Over the course of 4 years, for example, that’s more than the equivalent of 6 years in the District. Also, does anyone doubt that a school that can hire and fire the absolute best teachers and can pay them more because of less administrative overhead has more ability to put an excellent teacher in front of every classroom? And that excellent teachers get excellent results?

The more that people practice denial (as so wonderfully demonstrated by former Supt. Eva Joseph and so many of the people on this blog), the worse things will get ALL public schools, Charter and District.

Right on Disgusted with the lies. There are so many misconceptions about charter schools. I’m just wondering why the bloggers that state “I have the right to expect they to either perform above the public school and prove themselves or to be closed” don’t hold that same standard for the regular public schools? If they did, perhaps there wouldn’t be so many of them on the sh*t list.

I honestly have no opinion on whether or not New Covenant should stay open – I don’t know enough of the facts to have an opinion. I know parents who have sent their kids there, some with good experiences and some with bad, kind of like any other school. What I do regret is how long this decision is taking. It’s harmful to the students, faculty and parents involved, not only at New Covenant, but throughout the District. The District won’t know until the end of March whether or not they will have to absorb approximately 650 kids in September. Makes any sort of planning hard, and the District has enough other things it should be focusing on.

I’m not a charter school opponent philosophically, but I am quite nervous about the way things are going in Albany right now. Charters are being built at a rapid pace. I would be OK with that if there were long waiting lists for charters, but right now most of them have empty seats. I fear being left with shells of buildings that were once schools scattered around a city that already had an unoccupied building problem.

#53 you think you have all the fact. read todays paper that once again mentions how New Covenant was taken over in 2006 by Victory Schools, Inc…….a for-profit company based in New York. And your comment that anyone suggested that the Public school district should be allowed to keep the money themselves rather than give it to the charter schools is foolish. They would not keep money for students they do not have but they would be able to reduce their budget and the tax burden.

Yes, New Covenant is the one charter school in Albany that I said contracts with a for profit company. The school was not “taken over” by anyone. It is a non-profit run by a local Board of Directors that has chosen to contract with a company to run it, which by all accounts has done a spectacular job. They are the only school in Albany that contracts with anyone to run a school.

As for my “foolish” suggestion that District Schools would keep money for kids that they aren’t educating, that is EXACTLY what they are doing right now. Charter Schools get 2/3rds of the money per kid. The District could reduce their budget and the tax burden now, they have chosen not to.

Last year and this year, thanks to a cap on Charter reimbursements that the Legislature enacted at NYSUT’s behest, the amount that they get to keep is going up by thousands of dollars. Add to that the “transitional” charter school aid that they get to offset the cost of the quick rise of charter schools, and there’s an awful lot of money that the District is spending that taxpayers should be getting back. Or, at the very least, the District should not be talking about cutting programs while getting more and more money.

Charters are much more cost efficient than District schools for an assortment of reasons. Wake up and realize who is spending your tax dollars without earning them; that’s the District.

I think that for the purposed of the community of arbor hill, every measure should be taken to keep new covenant open, but for how much longer can that be used to stand upon. the bill is coming duefor the too rapid expansion of charter schools in Albany and the New covenant situation is simply the finger in the dyke!